


Your firsts are my lasts

by dollsome



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:56:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Oh dear,' she thinks, 'I believe I might love you a little.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your firsts are my lasts

_Here when I say "I never want to be without you,"  
somewhere else I am saying  
"I never want to be without you again." And when I touch you  
in each of the places we meet_

 _in all of the lives we are, it's with hands that are dying  
and resurrected.  
When I don't touch you it's a mistake in any life,  
in each place and forever._

(Bob Hicok, 'Other Lives and Dimensions and Finally a Love Poem')

They're not dead; she decides this is ample cause for celebration, after the day they've had. Though to be fair, anything seems like ample cause for celebration after two glasses of -- well, whatever it is they're drinking. This planet's unpronounceable answer to champagne. It changes colors every few seconds, which she likes. It also makes a tiny sparkly noise, a more evolved version of fizzing, sounding like a busy wind chime; that, she gets sick of within thirty seconds. The Doctor seems delighted by it. Of course he is, the silly old man. (By 'old,' she doesn't mean _old_ , necessarily; just old enough that they tend to draw a few bemused looks when they're out together, even when they're not on planets where the norm is four eyeballs per face. He's assured her that he's got a more youthful visage up ahead, and that she's going to love it, and that she probably ought to start cultivating a keen appreciation for bowties, oh, nowish. She thinks it might break her heart a little bit to say goodbye to this face, but she's certainly not going to tell him that. She thinks bowties are ridiculous. She _has_ told him that.)

She watches him and he watches the space champagne shift from chartreuse to fuchsia. He laughs, tickled; the Doctor, with all the wonders of space and time at his disposal, thinks that there is nothing more thoroughly splendid than a drink that changes color. _Oh dear,_ she thinks, _I believe I might love you a little_ , and that seems as good a reason as any to lean forward and kiss him.

He kisses her back for a couple of seconds -- kisses her exactly right, if that makes any sense (and to her it does and doesn't, all at once) -- and then he seems to realize what's happening. His arms go a-flailing; his fingers brush her hair, just briefly; then he topples off his bar stool.

It's intensely unromantic. She can't stop laughing as she pulls him back up.

"Why are you always doing that??" he grumbles, straightening his jacket.

Intriguing.

"Always? So I've kissed you before."

"Not telling."

"Oh, come on. It's obvious I have. You've just given it away."

"No I haven't."

"Yes, you really have."

"No I haven't. And even if I had, well, don't get the idea into your head that you, Miss Song, are the sole snog instigator in this relationship. If it was a relationship, which I'm not saying it was. Is. Will be. I'm simply saying that, in this theoretical relationship that you and I do not have in the past -- future -- my past, your future -- mostly -- still trying to puzzle out what can be done about that, but -- point is: it's not like I haven't been known to knock your socks off with a nothing-short-of-fantastic, no, _epic_ (let's say epic, shall we?, that sounds nice) kiss. Theoretical socks, of course. Except for that one time ..."

"You madman," she says delightedly.

"That's me," he admits, more easily than she's used to. His madman ramble seems to have taken a lot out of him. That's new; they usually don't.

"This is the strangest relationship of all time," she declares. And can't help laughing a little. To be honest, she likes the sound of it.

"Didn't say it was a relationship," the Doctor reminds her.

"Well, I did," she says firmly. She thinks he needs a bit of that; sometimes he's so skittish around her, so damned exhaustingly careful. _I don't want to take your future from you,_ he said a year ago, when she finally got him to tell her just why he seemed to know her so well. _It's very sweet that you think you could,_ she answered then, and she stands by it now. She knows herself well enough to know that there'll be no regretting this, regretting him.

"You did," he acknowledges with a sigh. Surprising; she certainly doesn't hate it. "I suppose it must be, then."

"That was easy," she marvels, laughing a little, reaching for his hand. "You know better than to fight with me."

"Yeahhhh, that development's going to take awhile," he informs her, tugging on one of her fingertips affectionately. She laughs, and so does he, and then it's nothing besides twinkly champagne noises. He just looks at her. It's not uncommon, men looking at her (she's got a knack for drawing attention), but he does it differently. She knows he loves her -- that much, even he can't keep secret -- but it's not often he lets it show this plainly.

"What?" she prompts gently, squeezing his hand.

"Look at you," he says, smiling a little. "River Song. Barely twenty. The world's your oyster." She doesn't like oysters, and she's about to say so, but: "No, wait, scratch that, scratch oysters, how 'bout clams? The world's your clam."

She snorts. " _That's_ lovely."

"It is," he says, earnest. "It truly is."

Bless him. "Do I make you miss her?"

"What?"

"The me that's coming." She thinks the space champagne's to blame for this one.

His eyes seem to darken. Not cruelly; but God, he is old after all. "Honest answer?"

She knocks her foot against his. "I'm a big girl."

"Yes," he says. She can tell how relieved he is to confess it. This strange, strange, strange romance. He loops one of her curls around his finger and looks right into her face, quite a searching look, and says, quieter, "Oh, yes."

She reminds herself how stupid it is -- to be jealous of herself. She reminds herself that the future is so bright. She lowers her voice, leans in close, smiles. "But I'll do for now, hmm?"

"Oh," he says, "River," and this time, the second time, he's the one to kiss her.

  



End file.
